


How am I Gonna be an Optimist About This?

by AlexKingOfTheDamned



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Birth, Cravings, F/M, Insecurity, Pregnant Sex, Romantic Fluff, Slow Build, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:28:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5282087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexKingOfTheDamned/pseuds/AlexKingOfTheDamned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassandra hadn't planned to get pregnant. She didn't even know Varric COULD get her pregnant. But she knows one thing for sure-- he's going to be a father whether he likes it or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue (Month One)

**Author's Note:**

> Written with my lovely partner mouthydwarf.tumblr.com as Varric, myself as Cassandra 
> 
> Rated E for future chapters

He’d tried not to blame her for it, but after stewing on it for a long time, Varric couldn’t bring himself to forgive Bianca for giving up the location of the red lyrium to Corypheus. That was only just the beginning of their falling apart, if there had ever really been anything to fall apart from. Varric sometimes wondered what he’d been holding out for all of these years.

 

When she’d found out she was pregnant and she wrote the letter to Varric, he’d been heartbroken. In it she’d detailed exactly why their foolish, star crossed love letters needed to stop. She’d outgrown him. The relationship, if it could be called that, was now endangering not just Bianca but the life of her unborn child. It was something she wasn’t willing to risk.

 

Varric went through several drafts of the response he would write back to her, in it he told her that he understood her decision and he wished her and her husband the best of luck. Deep down inside, he had been torn apart, but he wouldn’t let her know in words. Bianca was nothing if not smart, she knew how much pain that letter had wrought.

 

He doesn’t receive word back from her after he’s sent his letter, and he expects to honestly never hear from her again. She’d urged him to move on, but he isn’t sure he can do that just yet. He’s been so entangled in this hopeless romance for so long, it’s unclear whether or not he can break free of the pattern he’s fallen into. For so long he’s pushed people away.

 

He wrote the Inquisitor to tell him what happened, and received a consoling letter in return, and an offer to visit. Varric turns him down, sure that the man has much more important things to do that come listen to him cry a bunch. To his surprise, he receives a letter from Cassandra of all people in the following week, detailing how furious she was to hear from the Inquisitor about Varric’s lover abandoning him after stringing him along for all these years.

 

In her letter, she promised to write Bianca herself a very strongly-worded letter to let her know exactly what she thinks of women who toy with men’s hearts in such a way, if Varric would only tell her where to send it. Varric of course, does not, but he’s touched by her protective feelings.

 

He hadn’t expected her to pack up and come to see him in person. She claimed it was to try and beat the address out of him, but she gives up on that excuse so early that he knows she just missed him. That’s confirmed when he outright accuses her of wanting to see him, and she just rolls her eyes and scoffs.

 

She starts visiting him more often after that point, and it happens gradually. When she’s close to Kirkwall she stops by for a visit, and they talk like old times. But as the weeks move on and he realizes he’s free, he starts to see Cassandra in a different light. He’d always found her attractive, but now there’s a possibility for something else-- but he’s so uncertain, so uncharacteristically self conscious that he sabotages himself at every turn.

 

He flirts with her and at first Cassandra is outright immune to it. Then, slowly, she opens up. He learns the right words to say to her. She’s different from the women he’d teased in the Hanged Man all those years ago. Under everything, she needs a softer touch, something more intimate and thoughtful than the flash of his chest and a toothy smile.

 

He brings her dinner and they talk. They read passages of his stupid romance novels when they share inn rooms together, and she gives surprisingly chaste giggles when he reads things in a funny voice. They speak of their lives, of dreams and hopes, of fears sometimes.

 

Then one night, it had just happened. In a moment of passion, they’d wound up in bed together. Varric spends his time taking her apart, and she shows him just how gentle she can be without losing her sense of command and control. Afterward, they lay together in the dying light of the fire, each too lazy and spent to get up to poke the embers.

 

Varric lays his head on her chest, blond hair strewn about his face as they both drink in each others presence. He absently strokes her tummy, she kisses his sweaty brow and he hums contentedly, quietly.

 

“That tickles,” Cassandra tries to chastise him, but she’s so relaxed that it comes out on a lilting hum. The tight muscles of her belly jump whenever he grazes her enough to shoot a jolt through her, and she laughs quietly, moaning in distaste when his efforts turn to real tickling, and she rolls over onto her stomach to try and shield herself from his fingers. She hugs one of his pillows to her chest and buries her face in it, her hair a mess from their earlier rutting. His sheets rest over the swell of her bottom, chilling her upper body as the room cools down from the fire’s absence.

 

She turns her head to look at him, her face half-hidden in the pillow, and smiles lazily. “This was... good, I think. It has been a very, very long time for me.”

 

Varric rolls up on his back and rests his head on arms folded behind it. He looks up at the ceiling and smiles. His last time had been considerably less charged with romance, and had instead been the product of carnal lust more than anything else really.

 

“I can’t say the same, but the last time wasn’t nearly as good as this.”

 

“Ugh,” she rolls her eyes and drops her arms, but she’s still smiling just slightly. “Even in bed with me I cannot get you to stop bragging.”

 

“As if you don’t like it,” Varric quips with a grin, his eyes flick from her eyes to the curve of her back, relishing how beautiful that dip is.

 

She shakes her head with a sigh, and drops her cheek down onto her forearms. She blows a gust up her nose to get hair off her forehead. She just looks at him for a stretch, admiring the hard lines of his musculature, his handsome jawline, his severe eyes. She arches back like a cat and crawls over him to lay on his chest, her breasts pressed up against him as she folds her hands under her chin.

 

“So what does this mean?” she says, running a finger through his chest hair. “For... us?”

 

Varric’s smile drops at that and an odd sort of feeling happens in his chest that he soon realizes is fear. His heart thrums in his throat as he looks at her. Sex hasn’t meant anything to him in a long time, it’s just been a means to and end in most cases. A fling with a serving girl or a romp with one of the soldiers. There’s never been any commitment to it, but now Cassandra’s here, and by the look in her eyes, she’s demanding something out of him.

 

He realizes he’s been silent for too long when Cassandra’s expression hardens. “I-I don’t know, Cass. What do you want it to mean?”

 

She sits up, feeling suddenly self conscious, and holds his sheet to her chest. “I thought this would be the beginning of something, I don’t know. It seemed like things were building to this for a long time. Was I mistaken?”

 

Varric sits up at that, he rests his back against the headboard and runs his fingers through disheveled blond locks as his gaze moves from Cassandra to stare blankly across the room. It hits him very suddenly that he could in fact have a relationship with Cass. She isn’t separated from him by miles or familial intricacies. There are no snags to hang them up.

 

“I’m getting old if I’m even considering it.” He blurts as he thinks. “I can’t _settle down_ , I’m still . . . young? Right?”

 

Cassandra frowns deeply. “What? I don’t know, I suppose. Age does not really have anything to do with settling down, however. Besides, you are already Viscount. Is that not more settled down than pursuing a relationship?”

 

“Maker, I _am_ old,” Varric whispers, his fingers become more frantically entangled in his hair. He looks down at his body, wondering when he’d gotten so old, he doesn’t feel old, but he must be. As if it’s the worst terror in the known world, he turns frightened eyes on Cassandra and he feels suddenly vulnerable. He tugs the sheets up over himself to cover him from the waist down.

 

Cassandra frowns, folding her arms over her chest-- not aggressively, more self-consciously. “You are only a couple years older than me,” she says defensively, frowning deeply.

 

“I know but--it’s probably my pride getting to me, but I just can’t stand to think of myself as ‘old’. I feel like I’m in the prime of my life, there’s still lots to see and do, what if I miss out something . . . better.” He realizes the weight of his words after it’s too late to make amends for them. “Not that you-- I mean. Shit.”

 

“Right,” she says stiffly, and stands up from the bed, feeling her face going hot. She takes the sheet with her, clutching it to her body as she starts to gather her discarded clothing and armor. “I see now that this was a mistake. My apologies for making you feel _old_.”

 

She shimmies into her pants and turns around, dropping the sheet so she can wrap her breastband around her body and clip it into place over her shoulders, and she tugs her shirt down over her head.

 

“Cass, I’m sorry,” Varric says, sitting up so his legs are over the edge of the bed. He’s still buck naked, and now cold thanks to the retreating sheet. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant that I’m not ready to settle down. This is a weird time for me. We can still see each other, I just don’t know how . . . serious I can be.”

 

“Forget it,” Cassandra says, her tone tense. “It does not matter. Frankly, I am not interested in seeing anybody who is not serious. If you change your mind, you know where to send a letter.”

 

She stuffs her feet into her boots and clips her armor over her chest, never once turning back to look at Varric. She refuses to let him see how shiny her eyes have gotten or how red her face is with shame. She turns to head for the door with a hasty “Good night,” and slams it shut behind her.

 

Varric retreats back onto the bed and lays there watching the dying embers of the fire. He’s really messed up this time. Cassandra may never trust him after this, and he knows it’ll be a while before they’ll be able to even look at each other again.

 

He punishes himself by laying in the cold for a while until he decides to get up and dressed, going to the desk beside the window so he can write for a while. He needs to get his head out of all of this for now. Enough mistakes for one night.


	2. Discovery (Month Two)

The last several times Cassandra visited, she always sent a letter first. She believed, possibly misguidedly, that Varric would want a chance to tidy up first before inviting her into his home (even if he did always prefer they stay in an inn when she visited just because it felt homier than his big stupid Viscount mansion) but this time, as she blazes a trail through Kirkwall like the devil himself is on her heels, she has sent no letter. She has given no forewarning. The damn dirty dwarf doesn’t _deserve_ it.

 

She lets herself in the front door, much to the shock of the staff, but they relax at the sight of the Seeker, and try to greet her, but she charges right past them. She knows where Varric will be-- where he always is on nights like this. She throws the door open to his study, and sure enough he’s sitting in a big armchair, hand writing and having a drink. He jumps a mile, startled out of his wits by the door hitting the wall, and he appears even more surprised by the sight of Cassandra.

 

“Cass--”

 

“Don’t _Cass_ me,” Cassandra points a finger at him as she advances on him. She seems aggressive, but it’s not the sort of anger Varric is used to seeing from her. He’s known her for so long now, and he can see real, tangible fear in her eyes and the way she holds herself. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?!”

 

“Before I answer that,” he says, looking up at her with a confused expression playing over his features, “I think you’d better explain what exactly I supposedly did to you . . .?”

 

“I am _pregnant_ , you _ass_ ,” she growls, her finger still raised at him, enough malice in her voice to drop a man dead, despite the way it shakes uncertainly.

 

Varric’s eyes go wide a moment and he looks down at the draft on his desk. He stutters for a moment, uncertain of what to say. He’d ask if she had had sex with someone else, but this is Cassandra. “H- how long have you known? Why didn’t you write?”

 

“A week,” she barks. “I didn’t write because I did not want to give you a chance to _flee_.”

 

“Flee? I’m Viscout of Kirkwall, where did you think I was going to go? I spend a night in the Hanged Man and they lose their minds around here. I don’t mean to imply unsavory things about you, but are you sure it’s mine?”

 

“How many men do you think I have sex with on a regular basis?” Cassandra spits out. “Short answer: none.”

 

“It was just a question, I was making sure.” Varric puts his hands up defensively. The next instant, he gets up from his chair and crosses to Cassandra. He gives her an uncertain look, his eyes searching. “I want to take care of you. You should move in immediately.”

 

Cassandra gives a scoffing laugh, and shakes her head. “Are you _joking?”_ she demands. “You cannot stand the idea of a girlfriend, but a _baby_ you are okay with? What was this about feeling old? Settling down? Doesn’t a quaint little family herald exactly that?”

 

“It does, but I can’t just leave you alone to take care of my kid.” His brows knit together, and even though he’s terrified, he insists. “You need me now, this is different. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I said, and it was a mistake. You’re all I ever think about anymore, when my head’s not full of this viscount business. I need you in my life. I’m sorry that I ever gave you any other impression.”

 

Cassandra frowns deeply, crossing her arms. She wants to accept, she wants to jump in his arms and never leave. She’s had feelings for him building for so long now, it feels like a dream come true that he would accept her all of a sudden. She’s suffered enough heartbreak and rough waters to know that when things seem too good to be true, it’s because they are.

 

She can see the fear in his eyes. She knows that he’s still frightened and nothing really has changed, but she bore the humiliation of his rejection for the past month, struggling to mend a broken heart, and suddenly he wants her to stay just because he put a baby in her? Why wasn’t she enough for him? She wants to be enough for him. She can’t give in so easily, she has to know at the very least that he means what he says, that he has feelings for her, that he isn’t only saying this to look good. She has to know that he’ll fight for her.

 

“I _don’t_ need you,” she says firmly. “I need your coin. I can raise this baby on my own. I have done everything else on my own.”

 

“Listen, I’m not going to pretend like I’m not scared, because I am. Really scared. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit by and let you raise this kid on your own. I... I love you.” Varric takes her by the hand, holds firmly even when she flinches a little at his touch. “I’m sorry that it took me so long to admit it. If I’m not what you want, then that’s fine, but at least let me pay for everything while you’re carrying this child. I don’t want you to be without, even for a second.”

 

Cassandra frowns and tugs her hand away from his. Her heart is pounding, she wants so desperately to believe him-- and part of her does. But she’s never been able to help the stubborn part of her. Half out of spite and half in bitter, frightened truth, she crosses her arms and mutters,

 

“I am not sure I believe you.”

 

She means to sound harsh, even accusatory, but after suffering through the fear and doubt of the last week, she knows she just sounds scared.

 

“I don’t blame you, honestly,” Varric replies, looking hurt that she’s pulled away from him, but he understands. “I wouldn’t trust me either after what I said last time.”

 

Cassandra grits her teeth, feeling equally hurt. She’d hoped he would have fought for her a little harder than that. But his resignation is all the proof she needs of what she feared-- he wasn’t really serious.

 

“I am going to stay here for a few days,” she says before he can even offer it. “During which we can discuss the future of the child and set up a way for you to offer support while I raise it.”

 

“Right,” Varric replies awkwardly. They share a tense moment before Cassandra leaves the room entirely and he sinks back into his seat. He’s already scheming of ways to prove to her just how much he means what he says about being with her and taking care of her, but for now he needs to take a moment to just absorb the information.

 

The next twenty four hours, they barely see hide nor hair of each other. Varric plots ways he can show his love. He considers buying her roses, but thinks it too cliche even for a woman who reads romance novels, and that’s when he’d had the idea. He needs to put some of the romance back into their relationship, to show her he still loves her.

 

The dwarf spends a while hunched over the manuscript for Swords and Shields, trying to find the perfect scene to recreate. The first time Roderick and Avalon kiss springs to mind, but he thinks it too lighthearted for the occasion. He needs something that’ll hit home his point. As he’s flicking through, he recalls the proposal scene, and finds it. As he’s reading through it, a small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. It’s perfect.

 

The following day while Cassandra is out, he makes a mess of the den. The servants think he’s gone mad as he moves the furniture about and brings leaves from outside into the den and litters the floor with them. He adds handfuls of dirt here and there for effect. The final touch is, of course, gathering the candles around, which had been an vital part of the scene in his book. Painstakingly, he goes through and lights each and every one of them and waits.

 

It’s dark before Cassandra enters the house. The candles are burning down low in their wicks. Varric has shooed the servants away as she walks in, her purchases from the market under her arm. Even in the dim light he can see she’s confused.

 

“Were you robbed?”

 

“What a beautiful cave, don’t you think?” Varric says, taking a step forward. He holds a single rose in his hand for effect, and looks to her expectantly.

 

Cassandra tilts her head, eyes narrowing in suspicious question as she looks around the room. All the furniture has been shoved to the back of the room in darkness, while Varric stands among leaves, ivy, dirt and rocks all over the floor of his living room, holding a rose of all things.

 

Setting down her purchases, eyes still narrowed, she rests her hands on her hips. “Oh, I see,” she says tiredly, already thinking about how frustrating this is going to be for the staff to clean up. “You have just gone mad.”

 

“I’m mad for you, Avalon." Varric takes another step forward to hand the rose off to her, which she stares at in puzzlement. “I have waited for a long time to have this moment with you, and now that we’re together, I have a confession to make to you.”

 

Cassandra is still squinting at Varric, feeling much like she’s missing the punchline of a joke. He called her Avalon, the name of the Knight-Commander in his romance novels, Swords and Shields-- novels that she knows he’s aware she loves, and he has mocked her for it in the past. Is he mocking her now?

 

She looks around the room again, at all the candles lying around, and down at the rose. He’d spoken a line directly from the last chapter of the last book, in which Roderick-- Avalon’s illegitimate lover-- brought her to a cave near Heartvale, the place where they made love for the first time.

 

Varric had called his living room a cave. He’s handing her a rose, like Roderick did, calling her Avalon, quoting a scene right from his book. Is she meant to play along? This scene ends with Roderick proposing to Avalon-- and Cassandra realizes with a quickening of her pulse that Varric may be intending to propose to her. It feels a little sudden, and a little forced, but she _had_ been hoping he would fight for her. Maybe this is his way of fighting.

 

“You know the rose Roderick gave to Avalon was white, not red,” she smirks, bringing it to her nose within his hand to inhale its sweet scent.

 

“It’s all I could find.” He mutters out of the side of his mouth, and he waits expectantly for her to say the next line. If she’s really read that stupid book as many times as he thinks she has, she’s no stranger to how this scene plays out. He proffers the rose again, his heart thrumming in his chest as he fears she won’t take it. She could just walk right out of the room and leave him standing here like a fool, and she’d be completely within her right.

 

“I have waited for a long time to have this moment with you, and now that we’re together, I have a confession to make to you.”

 

She finally takes it, sighing through her nose. “Oh, Roderick,” she recites, a little embarrassed by how well she knows the book. “You know I have been just so busy lately. My duties have gotten so overwhelming as of late. But you are never far from my mind.”

 

She clutches the rose in both hands and sighs dreamily, over-exaggerated (she’s a seeker, not an actress) the way Avalon does in the book. “What is your confession, my love?”

 

“Long nights I have lain awake, thinking of you. When we are apart, I feel as though there is a chasm in my chest that only you can fill. It aches to be away from you. Some nights I walk by your window just to feel close to you, praying that you’ll notice my form through the glass and greet me. I can no longer stand to be away from you.”

 

Varric gets down on one knee, and is quietly grateful that his servants are not anywhere that they could see how ridiculous it must look with his head reaching only Cassandra’s thigh. Still, he holds his smile and reaches up a hand, “My dearest Avalon, I wish to marry you.”

 

Cassandra’s smile is impossible to hide. His foolish, desperate attempt to convey his feelings lacks no level of charm, but she can see the tension in his eyes. She knows he’s only doing this because he thinks it’s what she wants-- and part of her does want it. Part of her wants it so badly it aches in her chest like a wound. But she doesn’t want this if Varric is forcing himself to give it to her. She would rather his question come when he is truly ready for it.

 

He’s afraid to settle down, he’s afraid of this, and despite his enormous fear he’s still trying. He’d been scared by the thought of just being in a relationship with her, so scared he preferred to push her away than try-- and now he has a baby on the way, which is so much more serious than just courting, and he’s _trying_. And on top of that, he’s attempting to propose to her now? It’s not as grand a fight as shouting his love from the rooftop, but faced with this now, she realizes she doesn’t need it.

 

“Oh, Roderick,” she takes his hand, the way Avalon does in the book, but she doesn’t recite the next line, in which Avalon accepts his marriage proposal and pulls him up into a kiss. Instead, she takes a knee in front of him as well and sets the rose down so she can hold his hand in both of hers. Varric looks confused at her divergence from the script. “I do not need you to marry me to know your love,” she says instead, and reaches to sweep a lock of hair off his forehead. “You need not ask this of me. Only say you will stay with me forever, and give me your heart. It’s all I require.”

 

Varric at first had gone to correct her, but he closes his mouth quickly as he listens to her words. She’s speaking for herself, past all this ridiculous show, she’s telling him how she feels. His heart soars as she accepts his love for what it is, as she relates her understanding of his hardship, of his attempt.

 

A sincerely sweet smile tugs at the corners of his mouth and he looks up into her eyes, “Are you so certain? I want all to know of our love, to be in awe by it. I could shout it from the cliffs how much I love you, but it would fail to convey my . . . undying love for you.” He stumbles over the unrehearsed words clumsily, trying his best to convey his own feelings.

 

“I am certain,” she takes his face in both hands and leans forward to kiss him. The gesture is sweet and closed-mouthed, and she breaks it after a moment to see a dreamy look in his eye. “Ask me again in a few years if you wish, after our illegitimate child is born, so I don’t have to worry about constantly re-tailoring a dress to fit me.”

 

“You know, that’s not exactly how I remember the book going.” Varric quips, squinting one eye playfully at her. His smile is intact all the same and he feels overwhelmed with a feeling of accomplishment. “You’ll move in then?”

 

“I’ll move in,” she nods, tapping her finger against his nose. “I am aware that is not how the book went. I was improving it.”

 

“You’re probably right,” Varric gets up from the floor and looks around the room. “I better get to cleaning up this mess.”

 

“Not just yet,” Cassandra tugs him back down and pushes him down onto his back amongst all the candles, which bathe them both in halo-like, golden light, and she crawls over him to sit in his lap. “You can’t stop before the best part of the scene. When Avalon and Roderick make love among the candles and starlight.”

 

“Of course, how could I forget.” Varric rumbles, and he leans up to meet her lips in a kiss.

 

They make love on the floor. It’s slow and sweet. Varric whispers sweet things in her ear, and they lay together until the candles all burn out and the only light is that of the dim moon shining in through the windows. He sees her off to bed before he returns to the den to clean up his mess. The whole time, he’s smiling ear to ear, thinking about his Seeker and their baby.


	3. Hormones (Month Three)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is like 100% porn just so you know

When it first started, Cassandra thought she was ill.

 

It was a tickle at first, at the base of her spine. She wrote it off as back pain. After all, she’d done a lot of moving, taking her belongings from her temporary home in Ferelden and officially moving in with Varric. Plus there had been all that unpacking to do, plenty of bending over-- surely, it was back pain.

 

But then the tickle moved to her lower belly. It wasn’t quite nausea, but it made her feel hot all the time, like her clothes were too tight. Her skin felt hyper sensitive, everything itched and tingled all the time. She had to throw open windows and fan herself cool many times a day, even though the breezes tickled her ears and neck in ways that made her feel even warmer sometimes.

 

She’d attributed it to nerves at first. She was nervous, going from full-time Seeker recruiter to live-in mother to be. She had no idea what to do with herself, most of the time, and took to housework like a fiend just to keep herself active and engaged in something. It wasn’t until a minor slip on the way up a staircase with a broom that she figured out what was going on, when she tripped and the broom handle wedged firmly right up against her core.

 

Then she knew all at once-- she was _aroused_.

 

She’d spent the last week in his state with no idea as to what was going on, but now that she knew, she was desperate. She’d rutted against that broom handle right on the staircase but within a minute she realized she wasn’t getting anywhere helpful and stopped, mortified with what she’d done and horrified by how easy it would have been for any of the staff to catch her.

 

After that, it wouldn’t leave her. The itch was unending, and ever present. It had been uncomfortable and inconvenient before when she didn’t know what it was, but now it was _maddening_. She had to find something to rut against three or more times a day-- a bed post, a stair railing, a candle, on one occasion she used the spine of _Swords and Shields,_ which came the closest to helping her, but she couldn’t take the shame of what Varric would say if he found out.

 

And that’s when she realized, much too late-- _Varric_. She had a lover now. Even she could be startled by her own blindness sometimes. She’d never had a steady lover before-- at least, not since her early teens, but she could hardly call Rodolpho’s inexperienced fumblings ‘making love.’ She finds Varric alone in his study, writing away, and she closes his door and locks it with the key in the keyhole. Varric looks up at her curiously but he doesn’t even have time to ask her what she’s doing before she’s crossed the room and straddled him right in his ridiculous oversized armchair.

 

“Fuck me,” she says, her eyes dark and her cheeks flushed. “ _Now_.”

 

“Now?” He breathes the word, dropping his pen on the desk and sitting back to look at her. “And shirk my duties as viscount? Why my lady . . . I thought you’d never ask,” His voice turns dark and heavy as he leans up to meet her lips in a heated kiss. Her impatience is evident in the way she devours his mouth.

 

Varric slides a hand down her pants and teases her with a finger. When he finds her already soaking through her smalls, he chuckles against her lips and whispers, “All ready for me, I see.”

 

“Shut up,” she growls into his mouth, grinding forward into his touch in desperate, stuttering jerks of her hips. She actually _whimpers_ when his finger slides into her, tears springing up in her eyes it feels so good. Maker, she should have just fucked herself with the broom handle, it hadn’t occurred to her to put anything _inside_.

 

“Rug,” she gasps, looking over at the garish bear rug laid out in front of Varric’s fire place. She backs off his lap and tugs him to his feet, already stripping on the way there. She has her shirt off and her breast band tossed aside, working on the laces of her breeches as she lays out on the rug, tender breasts spilling either side of her chest. She’s flushed all the way from her apples to her cheeks down to her sternum, and her nipples are pebbled and rock hard, as she finally kicks her leggings down and off her long legs. She’s never stripped so fast before in his presence.

 

She opens her arms to him, tugging him down before he even has his shirt all the way open, yanking him down by the sash into a fierce kiss as she unties it and whips it off his body, prying open his buttons so hard she might accidentally tear one off before finally spreading her hands on his bare chest. She whines into his mouth, her whole body hot from head to toe and she squeezes his pectorals hard, dragging nails down his chest and belly to leave red marks behind as she bites his lower lip.

 

“I need you,” she pants, sucking on his ear, and she wraps her long legs around behind his thighs.

 

“Mmgh . . . I can tell.” Varric rumbles, his head dipping to the side to catch her mouth in a hot kiss. He grinds himself, clothed, against her mound, delighting in the way her body responds to his. Rutting against her, he’s hard in no time and panting just as hard as she is.

 

Impatience spurs on Cassandra’s hands. She hurries to untie the laces of his trousers, and yanks them down hurriedly. Varric chuckles at her haste, she shuts him up with a hard kiss. She guides the head of his cock to her love and he pushes inside, her mouth leaves his in a filthy moan that has the hairs on Varric’s arms standing up on end.

 

His rhythm is slow at first, but she urges him on by grabbing him by the ass and setting her own pace. Varric’s never seen her like this before, desperate and needy, aggressive in her desire.

 

The dwarf’s mouth drops down to suck on one of her nipples. Their bodies move together, her legs encircling him once again, trapping him there in an intimate embrace. Varric’s tongue lashes over the sensitive bud of her nipple, teeth teasing her until her back arches and her voice tears high and warbling from her throat.

 

She doesn’t care how loud her voice is ringing, it doesn’t matter. His cock is the only thing that matters, spreading her, filling her, forcing her open wide in the exact way her body has been craving. She’s sobbing with pleasure, wringing her hands in the back of his shirt or the rug or his hair or anywhere she can sink her nails in.

 

“Varric!” she shouts-- and she’s _definitely_ never done that before. The last couple times they made love she was fairly reserved, moaning quietly or covering her mouth, but there’s nothing to stop her now as she crows and roars into the quiet house so that everyone in the building knows plainly what the Viscount is up to. Her legs tremble around him, clinging to his sides, swallowing him up in the long limbs as he pounds into her hard enough that she’s seeing stars.

 

When she comes, the whole _city_ might have heard. Tears roll down her cheeks from sheer pleasure and relief as he fucks her right through it, her whole body shaking on the rug. She flips him over then, using powerful muscles and thrusting him onto his back and she rides him to completion, fondling her own breasts and tugging her own hair until he finally spills himself into her. She slumps over him with a breathy, almost giddy laugh, and kisses him.

 

Varric is stunned into silence, looking up at her like he’s seeing her for the very first time. His hair is disheveled, face red, chest heaving as he comes down off of the high of climax. At last he shakes his head and manages to say in an incredulous voice, “What was that? Holy baby Andraste.”

 

She sits up straight, pushing bangs out of her face, and gives a breathless laugh. “I... I do not know. I have been feeling... aches, for days. They wouldn’t go away, I couldn’t take it anymore. One can only rut pillows for so long before craving something more...” she runs her hand down his belly. “Substantial.”

 

“I’m not complaining, babe, but damn you should have come to me sooner, I’ll always take care of you.” Varric says, reaching up to rub her arms lovingly as she trails her fingertips down his tummy.

 

“Really?” she looks him in the eye with a shy, girlish smile. “If the ache comes back I can return? I do not know why it didn’t occur to me, earlier. I am still getting used to the idea of having a lover I could go to at any time for this sort of thing. I was never particularly... active with my sex life before you.”

 

“Yes really,” Varric says with a chuckle. “You can come to me any time these ‘aches’ of yours start up. I’m certainly not going anywhere, and it’ll be a welcome break from all this viscount shit.”

 

She takes to his words very literally.

 

She’s there the next day-- and the next, and the next. Every time the burn between her legs gets to be too much, she seeks him out. At first he was thrilled-- she would find him at some point during the day and shove him into a closet or behind a locked door to any room, really. Her modesty paled in comparison to her hunger. She was starved for it, and Varric was happy to oblige, at first.

 

But it was quickly growing to be too much. She would come to him once in the morning some days, and then again in the afternoon, and then ride him once or twice once they were in bed at night. At first she had tried to sate herself even a little with something else-- her fingers, a brand new candle, a squash nicked from the kitchen-- but nothing satisfied her like Varric’s cock or the power behind his hips.

 

He’s so sore that he has to take breaks just from sitting down and has taken to pacing around his study until his aches are subsided somewhat. Varric wonders to himself when he’d gotten so old that an excess of sex had become a problem.

 

He tries to appease her with his mouth and fingers when his poor aging dick has trouble keeping up, and while that works for a little while, she soon craves something thicker inside her again, and begs him to fuck her instead.

 

The pattern continues on, she becomes more and more insistent. It’s difficult to get a moment to himself anymore. She’s in his study as often as she can be. Sometimes, he hides in the closet until she leaves, but she always finds him again after, and worse, she starts checking the closet and behind the drapes for him.

 

One morning he leaves before she has a chance to wake up, and he has a word with friend whose expertise might come in handy for such a problem as the one Cassandra is suffering from. It takes a week or two for his friend to come up with something, but when she does, it arrives in a polished wooden box, which Varric places on his desk.

 

He waits for Cassandra to come barging in looking for him again. This time he sits calmly, yet resolutely, behind the desk instead of rising to get undressed like he has been. She climbs on top of him, as expected, but he reaches around her and presents the box to her, puzzling the Seeker.

 

“Got you a present.” Varric says, a cheeky smile playing on his lips. “Before you go any further, you might want to open it. I got it made especially for you. I think you’ll find it . . . useful.”

 

She opens the box while he pets her hips, and frowns at the sight of what lay inside. Swathed in velvet, sits a perfect replica of a penis-- a penis she recognizes well at this point, with a runestone sitting in the base.

 

“You got me... a wooden penis,” she frowns, looking up at him in confusion.

 

“Don’t sound so disappointed.” Varric taps the runestone at its base, and the whole thing instantly begins to vibrate.

 

Cassandra blinks, her expression blank at first as she watches the thing vibrate in her palm, and then her brow furrows and she looks back up at Varric.

 

“You got me... a _haunted_ wooden penis.”

 

“It’s not haunted.” Varric says through a laugh, shaking his head. “Haven’t you ever seen a dildo before?” He suspects she may have never even heard of such a thing, Cassandra could be naive when it came to things such as this.

 

“Dildo?” she repeats the word, tapping the runestone again in the base so the vibrations cease, as they’d been tickling her arm rather uncomfortably. “Is that Qunlat?”

 

“I’m not surprised you’ve never heard of it before.” Varric rumbles with a laugh. He takes the object from her and turns it over in his hands. “It’s going to help you with this appetite you’ve acquired recently.”

 

“How is it going to help?” at this point she’s surmised that she’s supposed to put it in herself, but she doesn’t know what good that will do. “I have used other things to try what you are implying, candles and long gourds and my own fingers, and nothing has helped. Now you have purchased for me a wooden penis which... screams softly. How is this any different?”

 

“This is different because it vibrates. The other things, that’s just doing half the job. This is going to make you feel so amazing, you’ll never want to come back to me.” He looks from her to the bearskin rug and nods. “Let’s give it a try. If you don’t like it, I’ll fuck you.”

 

She frowns, but slides off his lap and strips her clothing off to lay out across the rug. Her underthings are already wet as she strips them off her legs, and spreads herself out for Varric to observe. The dark curls between her legs have matted together with her wetness.

 

“I still do not understand,” she says as he approaches with the device in hand. “Touching myself has only ever made me... more desperate. It is just a stalling method, I can never do to myself what you do to me, I have read that it is not even possible.”

 

While she had been getting undressed, Varric had gone over to lock the door so they wouldn’t be disturbed. He pulls his gloves off and lays down beside her, tapping the rune on the dildo to get it vibrating again. “We’ll start by putting it against your clit. Most women can’t get off by penetration alone, so if you were just doing that, I can see why you might not have been able to get off.”

 

Varric turns up on his side and presses the dildo against her clit, by now he knows exactly where it is. He watches as her head falls back against the rug, an uncertain look on her face. He applies more pressure, moving the toy against her in a rhythmic motion.

 

“Oh- _oh_ ,” her brows furrow and her mouth opens around a gasp. A jolt shoots through her belly when the vibrations touch her in just the right spot, and she snaps a hand down to hold Varric’s hand still so she can grind down against the buzzing thing. She moans louder, “Oh, Maker!” and bites her lower lip to try and stifle her cries.

 

Dropping her hot cheek to the cool fur rug, her thighs tremble and she rocks her hips down, fingernails digging into Varric’s wrist. “I did not expect-- oh-- I did not think this would-- oh, Varric.”

 

“It’s good mmm? I have one too, hits me in just the right spots.” Varric rumbles, kissing her neck before his mouth drops down to her breast. His broad, flat tongue strokes over her nipple, mouth closing around it tenderly. He delights in the way her voice pitches upward. Varric’s mouth leaves her long enough to tell her, “Now you try.”

 

She tentatively takes the device in hand and holds it delicately against her bud. She moans softly when it buzzes into her core, and she twists it around until she finds that perfect spot again with a louder moan.

 

“Are you sure this will work?” she gasps. “I have never been able to-- _ohh!_ I have never-- with my own touch-- I-- _ohh_ \--”

 

Her words keep breaking off, trailing into breathy gasps and groans instead every time the vibrations rock through her in just the right way.

 

Varric doesn’t need to say anything, the reaction speaks for itself. He encourages her to toy with her other breast, and for now he pulls away from her to let her reach her own climax. It’s a thing of beauty, watching her rock on the toy he’s bought for her.

 

“Doesn’t that feel so good? It’s better than a broom handle or a gourd, I’d wager.”

 

“Sh- shut up--” Cassandra tries to sound demanding, but her voice trembles out of her like an unsure teenager. She slowly moves the length to her opening and bites her lower lip, looking red-faced and shameful as she closes her eyes and presses it inside. The moan that spills out of her is sinful.

 

Her back arches as she cries out and sets to thrusting the full length inside her. Varric gets to see her stretch in a brand new way, spread around the toy, her dusty dark pink muscles clenching and fluttering around the girth modeled directly after Varric’s “dimensions.”

 

She whimpers, her face flushed darker, sweat on her brow as her wrist gets tired and she takes to rocking her hips down rather than rocking her hand up, and the moans return even louder as she hits something exquisite with the new angle. “Oh, Varric!” she gasps out, her head rolls back and her mouth opens wide around a long, loud moan. “This is-- I think I am going to--”

 

Varric watches with a smile as she tumbles into her climax. Her whole body goes rigid, back arching beautifully, eyes squeezed shut. She fucks herself through the orgasm, until her body is too sensitive to the vibrations, then she taps the runestone and slides the toy out of herself. Varric lays kisses along her neck, working his way toward her jaw until he can kiss her on the lips. He lays back and looks at her and she him, her eyes drooping tiredly as the sluggishness brought on by an intense orgasm washes over her.

 

“Does it satisfy?”

 

Her lips slowly curl into a smile that could _only_ be called satisfied. She laughs breathily through her nose and licks her lips.

 

“It will do,” she says, laughter making her voice light as she teases, “Thank you, Varric. Now I don’t need you anymore."

 

“Oh how you wound me.” Varric rumbles playfully against her neck. “One more time? For old times sake--seeing as how you’re abandoning me.”

 

“Oh, I suppose,” she rolls her eyes with a dramatic sigh, opening her arms to him. “I would not want you to forget what the embrace of a woman feels like.”

 

“You are too kind to me.” Varric quips, and he takes her mouth again in a hot kiss.

 

Cassandra helps him strip off and the two of them make love, but it’s playful this time, full of laughter and happiness. He tickles her, she chides him, they come together in a heap of giggles and happiness, and they lie together on the rug for a long while before either of them thinks to go back to their business.


	4. Cravings (Month Four)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somewhat of a short chapter, but it's really really cute~

It had started first in a dream. Cassandra had been nearly full term in her dream and dressed in what could only be a wedding gown, though that hadn’t been strange at the time. Her surroundings were lush and green and she’d been sat down at a massive table piled high with Nevarran caramel cream pastries. She’d been able to taste them so vividly in her dream that when she awoke, consumed by hormones, she’d actually started crying.

 

Varric had thought it was cute that she woke him up with her quiet sobs at a ridiculous hour, only to start whining about pastry. Cassandra was not nearly as charmed by the experience.

 

She could have lived with the embarrassment of crying about desserts in the middle of the night, but it seems fate has other ideas. In the days that pass, she is constantly reminded of the flavor she tasted in her dreams. She can very nearly taste it on her tongue, the flavor she hasn’t had in years is so easily brought back to her taste buds. She hasn’t had a caramel cream since her childhood, but the craving has made her go nearly mad with want.

 

It gets worse when other foods begin to taste bland, and some even start to repulse her. Over the course of a week she resorts to eating only one meal a day, much to the dismay of the midwife they’d hired to check in with Cassandra through the course of her pregnancy. The woman encourages Varric to try and help Cassandra into a more steady diet, but even Varric has no luck in assuaging the poor woman’s intense craving.

 

Another week passes with more of the same. Varric begins to tempt her with sweets of other varieties, hoping that she’ll eat more if the flavors are appealing to her, but she refuses the pies and tarts that he brings her. He brings candied apples and caramel candies to her, to no avail. Her lack of appetite is worrying, not only the midwife, but the dwarf as well, who had never thought concerns over a pregnant lover’s eating habits would be high on his priority list.

 

Eventually, he caves and asks around the city to see if there is any way he could get his hands on some of these treats, only to be told that they cannot be found in Kirkwall. At this point, he’s desperate enough that a trip to Nevarra doesn’t seem out of the question, it isn’t far from Kirkwall--but the heavy winter snows that they’ve recently gotten would make the roads impassable. Of course, he could send someone else out, but he doesn’t have the heart to do that.

 

Instead, he leafs through various cookbooks until he finds a recipe for a similar pastry. He could simply take the recipe to the bakery, but he feels a more personal touch is needed. So he sends for ingredients and sets about trying to recreate the pastry of Cassandra’s dreams.

 

Varric expends a great deal of time and energy on trying to get it right, shooing the cooks out of the kitchen, only consulting them when he isn’t sure of what to do. Several attempts are made, he stays up all night trying to perfect the recipe, but by the time morning comes around, he’s got nothing to show for it but a lopsided, messy pastry. It’s his best attempt so far, and having used up most of the ingredients, he’s sure it’s not going to get much better than this, so he sticks the lumpy thing on tray with a flower and a glass of milk and goes to deliver the fruit of his labors to Cassandra, expecting the inevitable rejection.

 

He comes into the room to find her sitting up in bed reading. The dwarf’s smile is pained as he brings the tray to her and sets it over her lap. “I’m not making any promises, but I tried to recreate those pastries you’ve been pining after. Don’t . . . eat too much of it. I’m not sure how edible it is.”

 

Upon seeing the pastry, Cassandra’s brows furrow. She dog ears her page and sets the book aside, inspecting the dish more closely. It looks absolutely nothing like the caramel creams of her childhood, to say the very least. The dollop of puffy cream that should have been sitting in a little cloud on top has melted and deflated into more of a lumpy gravy, and the flaky, layered dough has been replaced by what can only be a hand-kneaded puck. Lifting the fork and attempting to cut into the pastry to the gooey caramel center results only in scooting the hard lump of dough around the plate.

 

But honestly, Cassandra could not be happier. She looks up at Varric with his flour-white nose and takes one of his hands, where the dough has caked into his fingernails and knuckles, and gives the back a tender kiss.

 

“Thank you, Varric,” she says, and forgoes the fork in favor of picking up the pastry and biting into it. The cream tastes right and while the dough is dry, it’s very sweet. The caramel inside however is rock hard, and gives an alarming snapping noise when she bites into it that for a moment, Varric fears is her tooth. “It’s very--” she coughs. “Thoughtful.”

 

His eyes drop to what remains of the pastry and he gives a chuckle, “No need to spare my feelings, I know how awful it is.” Varric squeezes her hand, gaze returning to her face. “Turns out you can only get those Nevarran pastries in Nevarra, and the roads being what they are right now takes travel out of the picture. In hindsight, I probably could have just taken the recipe to one of the bakers here in Kirkwall . . .”

 

“Maybe I could help?” she sets the dead pastry to rest back on the plate and sucks the sticky sugar from her fingertips. With her other hand she plucks the flower from the little vase and tucks it into the braid crowning her head. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness in trying to make it for me, truly I am touched. I think it would be just as enjoyable, however, if not more so, if we were to try and make it together.”

 

“Well, I’ll have to send for more ingredients, but as soon as I do, we can make them.” He takes the tray away, setting it on the bedside table. “I couldn’t cook to save my life anyways--besides, I don’t even know what these things are supposed to taste like.”

 

The ingredients are delivered to the house within the next few days, and herald good news-- Cassandra’s appetite has apparently returned. The pastry had been nothing like she’d been craving, but the fact that Varric had tried touched a spot in her that melted the ice wall of her cravings-- at least, to an extent. She’s still very excited to hear the news that the delivery arrived.

 

With the kitchen set up for the day and Cassandra dressed in pants again (she’d been wearing nightgowns for comfort’s sake for days) she rolls up the sleeves of Varric’s shirt she’d borrowed, which is much too large for her, and hangs so wide open at the front Varric can catch a glimpse of a dark nipple if he’s paying attention.

 

“How are you at cracking eggs?” she sets her hands on her hips and looks down at him after the ingredients are all laid out.

 

Seeming to come out of a trance, Varric blinks up at her, looking at her face for the first time since they'd come into the kitchen. He'd been so entirely distracted by the shape of her in his shirt that he'd scarcely noticed anything else--he might have died on the spot and wouldn't have realized it until he'd heard the voices of his ancestors, if there really is such a thing.

 

"Eggs I can crack." Though whether or not he can get most of it in the bowl remains to be seen. "Have you ever made pastries before, or are we just flying blind, here?"

 

“I used to make them with the cook on my estate when I was very young,” she says, handing the eggs and a bowl down to Varric. “We will see how much I remember. I need twenty eggs, please do try not to get any shells in it.”

 

She sifts flour through a sifter to fluff it up and get lots of air into it, one hip cocked out in concentration. Flour fluffs up onto her bare chest and neck in dusty clouds, sweat rolling down and putting bronzey streaks through the flour, exposing her skin beneath. She looks back at Varric, who has succeeded in cracking exactly one egg in ten minutes.

 

“Varric? I thought you said you knew how to crack eggs.”

 

"Sorry, I must have blacked out."

 

_What kind of excuse is that? Blacking out. C'mon, Tethras, get your shit together and stop staring at her cleavage._

 

After sufficiently chiding himself for acting like a school boy, he sets to cracking the eggs. The sticky whites cling to his fingers and drip over the cuffs of his shirt in the process of trying to transport cracked egg to bowl, and he manages at one point to get a fair bit of shell into the bowl, which he is forced to fish out with his fingers.

 

Coughing through a cloud of flour, he scoots the bowl onto the counter and stands like a dunce, at a loss for what to do.

 

“Whip it,” she hands him a wire whisk, sifting together sugar, brown sugar, honey and a single egg, mixing it in another bowl. It’s quickly set on the stovetop and she watches over it carefully to make sure the caramel won’t burn.

 

It’s her turn to be distracted when she watches his arms and chest move and flex so he can whip the eggs sufficiently, licking her lips and very nearly letting the caramel burn. She puts a cap on the burner to put the caramel on a very low simmer, and turns to start on the dough.

 

He hip checks him playfully when he gets in on the dough-making process, flour spread on the table so the dough can be kneaded smoothly. They steal dough from one another’s piles, slap flour in one another’s faces, and giggle their way through a mountain of thin, stretchy dough. Cassandra can hardly remember a time she’s enjoyed herself so much.

 

By the time they've set the dough to rise a bit, there are handprints of flour across their bodies. One slapped across Cass's backside, and another in retaliation across Varric's face, with white dust clinging to his chesthair.

 

Once the dough has risen appropriately, Cass shows Varric how to roll and shape it, and he sets to helping her, though his disks are more lumpy and thick than hers, mainly due to his unpracticed hands, but also owed to the fact that he can't seem to take his eyes off of her as her hands move to shape the dough, delicate and capable at once.

 

She shows him how to fold the edges up over themselves to make little divets in the middle, and they stick them in the oven to bake. She checks on the caramel again to make sure it’s perfect, and offers Varric a bit from her fingertip to suck off.

 

They almost dissolve into furious making out, but Cassandra manages to gather her composure long enough to check the pastries again and pull them out when they’re half-finished so they can spoon the caramel into the center of each pastry before the layers of dough are applied to the top and they’re popped back in the oven.

 

“These are going to be delicious,” Cassandra says with girlish excitement, taking up the bowl with the other half of the eggs and tossing a bunch of sugar into it to start whipping it together to make cream.

 

Unable to resist, Varric wraps his arms around her whilst she sets to making the cream, arms encircling her waist, his head laid against her back. Large hands cup her tummy, feeling the curve that's started to grow there, heavy with their child. Laying lazy kisses along her back, he hums softly as his fingers dance up her abdomen, but he stops short at her bust and pulls back, "I have a hard time imagining anything being as delicious as you."

 

She replies with a disgusted noise and flicks a dollop of cream at him, which lands on his nose.

 

They wait like excited children nearby the stove. When Varric reaches for the door to check on the pastries, he's scolded by Cassandra, who tells him it'll mess up their baking time if he keeps opening the door and letting out the warm air, so his curiosity remains unquenched, and he turns his eagerness on her, gently taking her hands in his and teasing her about her giddiness. She isn't perturbed in the least, and gives him as good back.

 

Soon, by Cassandra's time, the pastries are done, and when she pulls them out of the stove, they are perfectly golden brown and flaky, the caramel inside warm and gooey beyond the layers of crisp dough. Varric, who has never had much of a sweet tooth, finds that his mouth waters at the sight of them. They must wait, however, for the delicacies to cool, which is aided by a wooden cooling rack that Cassandra procures from nearby.

 

Awhile later, after the pastries have cooled and Varric's hands have been swatted away several times, Cassandra begins to dollop cream atop the desserts. Varric's thoughts turn more lascivious as he watches her lick cream off her thumb, and he envisions introducing that cream to her dark nipples and using his own tongue to lick her clean.

 

With the cream fluffed up on top of every one of them (they had enough to make exactly twelve) Cassandra pours them each a glass of milk and they sit at the table with forks excitedly. The kitchen is a mess, they’re a mess, but she couldn’t be more excited. And when she cuts into the dough with her fork and the caramel flows out of the slice in a gooey molten river, she’s nearly brought to tears. When she takes the first bite, she actually is.

 

“It’s just like I remember,” she isn’t even embarrassed by the tears in her eyes. “Have you ever tasted anything so delicious, Varric?”

 

Ever the heathen, Varric chooses to forgo a fork and simply lifts his to his mouth by hand. When he bites into it, caramel dribbles down his chin and over his fingers, and he licks it off without hesitation, a dollop of cream marring his upper lip. Hazel eyes go wide, and he sits back, chewing thoughtfully.

 

"Shit. If I had known they were this good, I would have walked to Nevarra to get them myself, blizzard or not." He licks the fleck of cream off his lips and smiles across at her, his eyes full of love as he watches her go back in for another bite, eyes glistening with tears. She's regained something from her childhood, something warm and happy. That's enough to make him sentimental. "Thanks for letting me make them with you."

 

“You…” she catches herself almost tumbling headfirst into a compliment as gooey as the pastry and she clears her throat, wiping her eyes. “You are a very thoughtful… father.”

 

The tests out the word for the first time. Neither one of them had said the M _or_ F word yet, and it hangs in the air for a moment before she smiles. It sounds right, she thinks.

 

The word hits him hard in the chest, and he feels he might very well fall out of his seat with the weight it lays on his lungs. _Father_. A word he'd never associate with himself, but somehow it feels right. He pretends to have something in his eye, muttering a quiet curse word under his breath.

 

Cassandra lets him pretend. There will be plenty of time later to tease him about crying. She doubts this will be the last time he’s brought to tears during her pregnancy, after all. Nobody as sensitive as Varric pretends he isn’t could make it through the birth of his child without breaking down a few times.

 

It’s not like Cass can blame him, anyway. _She_ cried over pastries. _Twice_. 


End file.
